Twilight Time
by violetwarnercobalt
Summary: As night draws upon them, Gibbs watches over his sleeping agents and he can't help but notice how far they have come and where they are headed, all the while a feeling of dread lingers in the pit of his gut. Set during 2x23 Twilight. One shot.


**Title:** Twilight Time

**Author:** DiNozzoitis aka Violetwarnercobalt

**Author's Notes:** Another one shot from my seemingly endless list my muse keeps adding to. Just a look at and an extension of a scene from Twilight. Gibbs POV with appearances by Tony, McGee and Kate as well as mentions of Ari. Also because I am obsessed with him I added a bit more Tony! Also originally written on my phone in 8 separate memos of 1,000 characters each. Then when the phone had to be replaced I recorded me reading all of it onto my mother's phone, blue toothed them all to my new phone and then had to listen to myself for hours upon hours just to type this thing up lol! Do you know how annoying my voice is? LMAO! I suffered so much for this fic so I hope you guys like it! :D

**Warning:** The second B is dropped quite a bit but nothing else really except spoilers for the eps mentioned below.

**Spoilers:** Twilight, Reveille and Bette Noire

**Characters/Pairings:** No real pairings but the characters appearing/mentioned are Gibbs, Tony, McGee, Kate, Ducky, Ari, Gerald

**Rating:** PG

**Genre/Category:** Angst, Drama, slight Hurt/Comfort

**Word Count:** 1,938

**Disclaimer:** I do not own nor am in any way affiliated with those that own NCIS, nor am I connected to the show's cast and crew. This is written out of pure enjoyment and absolutely no money is being made from it's creation. Also I don't own the lyrics used at the start.

**Summary:** As night draws upon them, Gibbs watches over his sleeping agents and he can't help but notice how far they have come and where they are headed, all the while a feeling of dread lingers in the pit of his gut. Set during 2x23 Twilight. One shot.

_**Twilight Time**_

"Deepening shadows gather splendour  
As day is done  
Fingers of night will soon surrender  
The setting sun  
I count the moments darling  
Till you're here with me  
Together at last at twilight time"  
_Twilight Time – The Platters_

The dark had settled over DC; the majority of agents and other agency personnel had long ago headed home to the safety and warmth of their own beds, leaving the bullpen in an eerie silence that didn't sit right with the senior agent.

He doubted, though, whether that uneasy feeling had anything to do with the current lack of background noise. His gut had been screaming and gnawing at him ever since his run in with Ari a few hours earlier. It didn't take a genius to work out that the bastard was up to something and it wasn't just a plan to kill one Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Taking a sip from the long cold coffee, the senior agent looked around at his sleeping team and was relieved that they were all together in the one room; he could protect them if they were all there, or at least the same building, with him; and he wouldn't put it past the rogue double agent to already know where each member of his team lived, it wasn't a foolproof plan but at least at the navy yard they had guards manning every entrance and exit around the clock, not to mention their fellow agents, all of whom carried a weapon of some sort.

His team's loyalty and stubbornness was the main reason why he had informed them that he had no plans of going home, or leaving the building, when Kate was organising his protection detail. He could trust in his team to have his six and to not go home until he did, they were all determined and smart people, even if sometimes they were too loyal for the own good.

It had taken Gibbs a long time, and he had been through countless agents, to get a team that he could trust as much as he could DiNozzo, Todd and McGee, and he wasn't prepared to let any of them go without one hell of a fight.

Standing up from where he had previously been seated behind his desk, the ex-marine stretched out his aching limbs and tried to work our some of the kinks from his aging back. Sitting in that damned chair for so long wasn't a great idea at the best of times, an even worse thing to do considering only a few hours earlier he had dived down onto the concrete of an alley way trying to dispose of the little 'gift' Ari had left for him. Gibbs could only imagine what his second in command would be feeling when he woke up. Two bombs in one day was definitely a sign someone was out to get them.

The sound of his cracking bones was soon joined by the muffled snore of the probie agent whom sat directly opposite him. Though normally a hardened man on the outside, the boss couldn't stop the smirk that flashed across his face; he wouldn't admit it out loud, especially not within anyone's presence, but the younger agent was really coming into his own and would one day make a hell of a field agent. The kid may not have currently been at the level of the other two, previously experienced agents on Team Gibbs, but with the help and prodding of a certain Italian, the nervous babbling of the MIT graduate would eventually be kicked out of him.

Shifting his gaze from the newest member of his band of misfits, Gibbs took the time to closely examine the sleeping form of the agent whom had, out of his current three subordinates, been with him the longest.

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for Tony to sleep behind his desk, after almost four years as partners they had spent a lot of nights like this one, a case consuming their personal lives, living off of take-out and trying to catch a few minutes of shut eye anywhere and everywhere in the building, whether it be here in the bullpen, spread out on the futon Abby kept in her lab or even on one of the cold, hard metal tables down in autopsy on which Ducky cut opened and examined the deceased as well as patching up wounded agents.

What many people didn't know about the ex-cop was that he suffered bouts of chronic insomnia and would often return to the office at all hours of the night, sometimes falling asleep, head on a pile of cold cases, reports or the many forms that needed the signatures of both the MCRT lead and his second in command; forms which Tony usually ended up working on before Gibbs got the chance.

The first time Gibbs had come in and caught the Italian asleep at his desk, he had been confused and pissed beyond belief, he hadn't wanted an agent that could get himself or someone else killed just because the man lost sleep by leaving his paperwork until the very last minute. After being dragged by his boss of three months by the ear into the ex-gunny's personal conference room to chew him out, Tony had explained how nightmares of cases past had haunted his dreams and sometimes he couldn't go back to sleep, it was easier for him to come back into the office and work through the memories than it was to lay awake, staring at the white ceiling of his apartment. It was the first real tidbit the younger man had offered his boss; it was also the first time that Gibbs noticed Tony covered his true self with a mask of humour, claiming with a wink that he did his best work at night.

After that meeting, they'd never brought the issue up again, Gibbs discreetly watching out for his senior field agent whenever he had suspected a night at the office may have occurred. Well, it hadn't been brought up until he had watched the security camera footage in Abby's lab a few weeks ago.

Gibbs involuntarily shuddered at the thought of that day, that week, hell this past month.

Tony's bout with the pneumonic plague had taken it out of all of them, none more so than the man who had spent the last few weeks basically re-learning how to breathe on his own after almost drowning from built up fluid and gunk on his lungs. He was shocked at how thin and ill Tony still looked. The normally perfectly tailored clothes hung looser on his body and dark circles still shadowed his slightly hollowed out face.

They'd all come so close to losing him, but damn it if the boy didn't follow his orders not to die. He was as loyal as a Saint Barnard that one, but never ceased to surprise him. When he'd first hired DiNozzo from Baltimore PD Gibbs didn't expect Tony to last more than two years, Gibbs' second B usually scared his subordinates off eventually, and given Tony's previous track record, he had just assumed the younger man would have gotten itchy feet by now. He was glad that Tony hadn't left, or worse, gotten killed, given what a magnet for trouble he was; hell it was just that morning he was almost blown up, his first day back after returning a week early after his battle with the plague no less.

Just like he was with the rest of his team, the ex marine was proud of his agent, he was more proud of the strength, determination and loyalty Tony showed. Not to mention the fact that the Italian wasn't afraid to stand up to him and tell him what he really thought unlike his other two agents.

Moving slightly closer to the sleeping man, Gibbs checked that he was definitely still breathing, memories of the last few weeks increasing the protective instinct he felt for the younger man, a slight rasp rattling around in his chest was proof enough that everything was still as well as could be expected.

Once he was assured everything was fine with the Buckeye, his nerves a little less on edge than they had been before, Gibbs moved to crouch down behind his lone female agent's desk, adjusting Kate's jacket that currently doubled as a makeshift blanket, so it was spread around her petite body more snuggly. Unlike her two male team-mates, Todd was curled up on the floor, almost under her desk, and not just sacked out on the desk chair.

The ex-Secret Service agent was less like one of his agents and more like one of the thrice divorced man's ex-wives, stubborn, forceful and always wanting him to talk about his emotions; that sometimes he was tempted to head slap her, fire her or worse do both and then divorce her.

It had chilled him to the bone when Ari had brought up Kate during their coffee date earlier that night; even before the bastard had kidnapped her last year, Gibbs knew that Ari had a thing for Kate. She'd told him herself about her reaction after the incident in autopsy, had made it as clear as crystal; even to him and he'd been dangerously focused on his own issues with the terrorist, that she had some bizarre emotional or physical connection and attraction to Ari that hadn't allowed her to stab him right there and then during their first meeting.

It made him furious that she hadn't killed the bastard and for a while there he wasn't sure whether he could trust his female agent or not, sure he trusted her to back up the team if it came to it but he wasn't certain if she could handle herself around Ari again and trust her not to do something stupid that would end up getting her killed.

The nightmares he'd had of seeing the female agent dead on one of Ducky's cold metal tables hadn't helped at all.

Pushing himself back up off of the floor, his knees creaking in protest, he kept his eyes trained on Kate's sleeping form, his gut once again bubbling with foreboding, the visions of Kate cut open swirling with matching images of the bodies of Tony and McGee.

Gibbs hoped for once that his normally astute instincts were wrong, the way he felt now, not all of them would make it through the case unscathed.

The soft moan and sharp intake of breath had him spinning around just in time to see his second in command choke on the inhale of oxygen and get caught in one of his recently acquired coughing fits. Gibbs quickly rushed to the struggling man's side and firmly patted his back until he had regained control of his breath.

Handing Tony the bottle of water from the desk, in an unspoken order to sip, Gibbs was surprised that neither of the other two agents had woken up at the sound of the loud hacking sounds.

Once Tony had enough water to ease the tickle in his throat, he caught his boss' eye with a gaze so intense Gibbs found it more unsettling than watching the younger man struggle for breath.

The ex-marine didn't need the roughly choked out 'boss' to know what Tony was thinking. He could see it in those panicked green eyes that whatever Tony had dreamt wasn't far from his own train of thought.

Firmly squeezing Tony's shoulder in hope of reassuring the man he had just noticed was trembling slightly Gibbs let out a sigh "I know DiNozzo, trust me, I know."

Both men knew that things were only going to get worse before it got better, that bastard Ari was up to something and it wasn't going to end well.

_Fin._

**A/N:** I know the song I used at the start is actually a romantic song but I thought it suited the build up to the Gibbs/Ari show down. Also it was the title of the fic so yeah...

There will be a sorta-sequel to this that focuses on Tony's dream, not sure when that will be up but stayed tuned anyway!

Hopefully I will have the next bit of One Step At A Time for you guys soon. If you want to know in advance when that will be you can follow me on twitter at thetellyho or like my authors page on facebook, just type in DiNozzoitis aka Violetwarnercobalt into the search.

_Thoughts?_


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